


The Thought of Remembering

by migratorycat



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Amnesia, F/M, Female Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Kissing, White Mage Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:35:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26516812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/migratorycat/pseuds/migratorycat
Summary: In a late night at the Church of Saint Adama Landama, the Warrior of Light wakes from a nightmare of the massacre at the Waking Sands and seeks solace in Marques' company, finding kinship and a tender moment with him.
Relationships: Cid nan Garlond/Warrior of Light
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	The Thought of Remembering

I woke with the gasp of the dying.

Immediately my breath froze in my throat as memory rushed into me and informed me again where I was now, ensconced in the safety of the church and lying in one of the many beds that crowded the sleeping room of the pious. I was terrified that I had woken someone; I held my breath, listening, but I heard no disgruntled mumbles, no shifting of bodies and bedsheets. I let it out in a long, silent sigh.

The heat of the nightmare was still pulsing through me. Weeks ago I had come home from slaying Titan to witness the terror which now stalked my dreams every night, and even stained the backs of my eyelids when I dared close them in my waking hours. The corpses, the blood, the absence of life and hope were a shaft through my heart.

I relived the moments whenever my mind wandered, whenever I saw a body lying prone - a horrible trigger to carry when one was hiding in a church that regularly received bodies to bury just outside. I remembered coming upon the first in the darkness, groping for his pulse. Finding nothing, I ran and stumbled to the next, and the next… as a newly minted White Mage, I was desperate to use my powers to save even one life, one friend, but there were none; their lives had bled out of them. I had slipped upon the pools. The red iron smell filled my mind.

I sat up with as quiet a breath as I could muster. The bed sheets clung to me. I peeled them off and stood, seeking and finding my staff. I exhaled at its comforting presence. I glanced over to one of the beds, which I could dimly see and readily sense was empty; it was Marques' bed. Perhaps he, too, was experiencing trouble in the night. Perhaps this could be further common ground for us.

I needed a friend right now.

I crept from the bedroom and into the main body of the church. It was less dark here, but I relied upon my powers to tell me that there was no one present. Instead I extended my senses outward, questing outside the church, and there - there was a life perched upon one of the cliffs near the graves, vibrant and solitary. It was Marques, it had to be - and if it was not, then it would be a stranger lurking around the cemetery at night, which would need taking care of all the same.

I stepped into the moonlight and spotted the warm body sitting exactly where I had sensed it, their back facing me. Broad shoulders framing a broad chest - yes, it was Marques. I approached without trying to conceal my movements; I didn't want to startle him.

Marques turned his head to look back at me, though his face was set deep in his hood and I couldn't make out if he was displeased to find someone else roaming the night.

"Hello," I greeted with uncertainty. "May I sit with you?"

He nodded once, then turned forward again. I lowered myself to the cliff at his side and dangled my legs over it as he had done, bringing my staff to rest diagonally across my lap so it didn't clip his hip.

"Trouble sleeping?" I asked.

"Always," he said quietly. His voice was so soft as to nearly be drowned out by the gentle desert wind. In that one word I sensed such bone-deep sadness that my throat closed up and I had to swallow to steady myself again.

"Nightmares, I take it?"

"Yes… of times and places I don't recognize, with people I don't know."

"Ah," I said. "Someone informed me that you lost your memory." I had thought about it quite a lot, in fact.

"'Tis well and truly maddening," said he, adjusting his hood. "You've no idea the stress, the frustration."

I bit my lip, debating how much to tell him. Eventually, my desire for a companion, so deep and painful, pushed my misgivings entirely aside. "Actually, I do," I said softly. He turned his head. I saw a gleam in his eye under the shadow of his hood. "I don't remember anything of my life from the past few moons and back," I confessed. A smile came to my lips unbidden. "The last thing I remember - _vaguely_ \- is that I left where I was to escape the pity that people were showering upon my head because I couldn't remember anything before the calamity, and my furthest back memory is taking a ride to Gridania. That's it."

Marques' eyes fairly glowed with emotion. _Here is a kindred spirit,_ said they, swirling with myriad feelings.

"Then you're like me," he said. "You forgot everything because of the calamity."

"Not quite - I've forgotten things since the calamity, so I don't think it was that. But I have forgotten my entire life, so in that sense, we _are_ alike."

He looked down at his lap. "I never thought I'd meet someone like me. Someone who understands."

A long silence passed between us. A nocturnal hunter loosed a cry in the far distance, nearer to the desert's heart.

"I'm so tired of it," said Marques, voice low. "I wish I could remember."

I pursed my lips. I had grown content with my lot, not entirely bothered by my lack of memories because if my past had been so significant, might it not have caught up with me by now? But I suspected such an attitude wouldn't resonate with him, so I kept it to myself. Something occurred to me as I stroked the smooth wood of my staff with my thumb.

"Here's a secret," I said. "I'm a healer -"

"That is no secret," Marques retorted, but I turned a scowl on him.

"I wasn't done," I glowered. "I'm a healer, and also I have this… power. Sometimes I have visions of the past. I've been thinking lately that perhaps I could combine these two things, and… well, maybe I could look at you, and see if I can dredge up your memory. If you wanted to try it." My gaze turned furtive. "Do you?"

I could not make out his expression. The silence awaiting his answer stretched and stretched until I began to blush, feeling foolish for asking and thinking he might reject me, and a flash of warmth rushed through me when he finally nodded and murmured, "Alright."

I pulled my legs up and tucked them beside me as I turned my body towards him. I reached up to his hood, hesitating. "If I may…"

He nodded again, and I slipped the hood off of his head. As it pooled behind his neck and his countenance caught the moonlight, I was struck suddenly by his handsomeness. He had a strong jaw and soft yet severe eyes. His silver-white hair caught the light of the moon beautifully. I had only glimpsed his face before, and now seeing it all at once, I was taken aback by it. My hands hovered near his shoulders.

He quirked his head, and I came back to myself, clearing my throat.

"I probably need to touch you for this," I informed him. He only nodded again, the picture of patience. I put my hands on either side of his head, close to his brain, and held him firmly. His hair was so soft. "Don't move," I said. "Close your eyes."

He did so, and so did I. The bright moonlight filtered in through my eyelids, but my skill with conjury had long connected closed eyes with a sense of opening myself to the world around me. I felt my awareness broadening, but I reined it back in so that it captured only the two of us, until I could no longer even sense the tiny organisms that made their home in the earth underneath us. Marques became my world entire.

His pulse was elevated despite his even breath. His arms and back were tense, as if waiting for a strike.

"Does closing your eyes bother you?" I asked. My words ran together just slightly, as locked in the sensing trance that I was.

"Immensely," he said.

"Then open them, but don't move and try to keep your mind clear."

He must have done so; a sigh issued from him, caressing my face.

Silently, I begged my power - the Echo - to issue forth. With my magic I quested out as I did when seeking injuries to mend, but delved into his brain, searching for some sort of oddity, something I could latch on to, that might signal some sort of… _blockage,_ a dam, a scar… anything I could try to heal. But nothing jumped out at me. All I could sense was the soothing sensation of rightness.

I delved deeper, went closer. There had to be something out of place, something misaligned somewhere. Closer, closer…

I felt breath tickle my lips.

My eyes popped open with a start to see his face looming not an ilm away from mine. I had _physically_ leaned closer.

He did not withdraw. There was a slight smile on his lips, in his eyes. “Is this just some… fluffy pretext to get a kiss out of me?”

“No!” I lurched back and my hands flew away from his head as if he were white-hot. Well. Perhaps he was. I plucked at my robe sleeves and made heavily engaged eye contact with my lap nervously. My face heated vividly. “No, I swear, it’s nothing like that. I was looking for something wrong in your aether, and I couldn’t find anything, so I tried to look deeper, and I didn’t notice that I was getting closer to you while I was concentrating. I’m not - it’s not like that.” As I spoke, my deep awareness of the world around me spread and collapsed until all I had left were my normal five senses, right down to the ashen taste in my mouth. I swallowed twice trying to rid myself of it, waiting for Marques’ response.

His response was his large hand, his fingers, coming to gently cup my chin and turn my face back towards him, which I resisted not one whit.

“I’m not quite certain I believe you,” he said with a smile. A plain, tolerant smile. It made my cheeks burn all the brighter.

I stared at him. “Maybe you should give me what I want, then.” _What?_ Where had that come from? “Wait, no, uh…”

I stammered confusedly until he leaned down and closed his lips upon mine with such gentleness that I stilled at once, like a birdwatcher afraid to spook a rare sighting. The cool desert night blessed us with a light breeze that defined the length of the moment. I felt the moonlight on my skin like the sun beating down - or perhaps that was just the wild blush pulsating in my face.

It went on only a few moments, so long that I wanted to tear out my hair, and I pulled away and blurted, “I promise I really did try to heal you.”

Marques righted himself with a chuckle. “Yes, I believe you. I believe your heart is good. I believe you tried. It’s too bad you weren’t successful.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Or perhaps it isn’t. What if what I would remember is too painful?”

I pressed my lips together and looked at my lap again, wanting not to comment.

“I can tell that you’re not the type who cares much about remembering her past,” Marques ventured.

“How?”

“Because when I lamented not remembering mine, you didn’t chime in with ‘Ah! Me too! I wish I could remember!’ and so on.”

 _Figures that my silence would speak for me,_ I thought.

“I may not care about remembering my past,” I said quietly, “but I’m willing to keep trying to help you remember yours. If you’ll let me.”

“Will it involve more kisses?” he asked teasingly. I only grinned at my lap in response. He leaned back and pushed himself to his feet with a _hhhup_ , and carefully pulled his hood back up. “I’m going to try to sleep,” he declared with some confidence. “You should do the same. The church may not be an eventful place, but it does require work.”

I nodded in my way, turning to watch him as he made his way back to the church. When the doors shut behind him, I turned my eyes to the moon and its pale glow. Sometimes, when I looked at that celestial body, some semblance of a spark lighted in my brain - a chance to remember. But that was all it ever was.

In the far distance a desert creature howled and then yelped. I pulled my hood halfway up and then lowered my back to the ground, resting my head within my hood so that dirt wouldn’t get in my hair. I gazed up at the moon, wanting to remember, wanting to stay ignorant. Another breeze swept across the sand and sent tiny grains cascading across others, eroding them microscopically, overturning the desert’s skin little by little.

With the moon bathing me, I slept.


End file.
